Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!linus!sid
From: sid@linus.UUCP (Sid Stuart)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: printing on the NeXt machine.
Message-ID: <41087@linus.UUCP>
Date: 18 Oct 88 17:47:15 GMT
Reply-To: sid@linus.UUCP (Sid Stuart)
Distribution: na
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford MA
Lines: 26


When I first read about the printer for the NeXT machine, I was a tad
concerned about the cost effectiveness of shared printers using their
approach. The problem is that the NeXT printer accepts bitmap
output from the host NeXT computer. Since the host computer is running display
Postscript, it is easy for it to generate a bitmap from a Postscript
program. This is great for a single user system, since the cost of
duplicating processors, one in the computer and one in the printer, is removed.

In a shared environment though, it is unlikely that one would want to go to the
expense of having a $2,000 printer on each computer. It is also
unlikly that one would want to blast bitmaps over the ethernet to the
machine with the NeXT printer on it. And it is unlikly that one would want
to burden one computer on the net with the task of generating the bitmaps.
But, there is a solution. Simply tie your favorite Postscript printer
onto one of the NeXT machines through the serial port and SHAZAM!, it's
the same thing we have been doing all along, only easier. Since now the
Postscript program can be taken from the Postscript display system to send to
the Postscript printer without going through a translator like Transcript.


sid@linus

ps.
	Several of the above words are trademarked. It is left as an exercise
for the reader to recognize which are.